I didnt. I was just, you know, working from that place. Looking back on it, all kinds of things, while people are laughing. I denied we are having a message. We were about making an audience laugh. Charlie carlos ghosn and norman lear when we continue. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following rose additional funding provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Captioning sponsored by Charlie Carlos ghosn is here, c. E. O. And chairman of the renaultnissan alliance, a corporation that represents one in ten cars sold worldwide, one of two c. E. O. S to run two fortune five companies simultaneously. He has become avtovaz in 2005. He led cars into the market with vehicles such as the nissan leaf. Welcome back to the table almost five years to the day since last time. Thank you, charlie. Charlie lets talk about cars like the leaf, where we are and how much a holdup is it in terms of buyer acceptance that there are not enough predictable charges stations for people thinking about an electric car . Well, you know, the fact that there are not enough charging stations is the main obstacle for people moving into buying the car. We have a lot of surveys practically in all the countries, not just the United States. This is the main obstacle today. Were lobbying in every country to try to support the development of the charging infrastructure. The leaf is the most sold electric car in the world. Charlie i do know. And alliance has sold almost 200,000 electric cars. Still small request paired to the 84 million cars sold every year. This is a very important step because we still see a big future for the electric car. Charlie the leaf is a profitable car for you . The leaf starts to be profitable. With the quantity that we are now producing, and after all the Cost Reduction that we have been through for the last two with years, we start to be profitable. So thats why we think that its time to push, because when you start to be profitable, youre obviously very motivated to sell the car. Charlie how long do you think it will take in order for there to be a wide acceptance of the cars . I think the development will be steady but not very quick. Regulations will help a lot. As you probably know, the chinese are putting very strict regulations on emissions and they are moving towards emission standards which are nearly as strict as the United States and this will force the car manufacturer to transform part of their offer into electric cars. Today in china, you cant expend your plans, you cannot because everything has to be authorized without proposing a new technology, whats called the new energy car, which is the electric car or plugin hybrids. Charlie you cannot expand in china unless you agree to invest in new technology that have a positive impact on climate . Exactly. Its defined electric or plugin hybrid. Charlie hmm. Whine is your biggest market. It is. Charlie it will grow fantastically, is it not, with the continued rise to have the middle class in china . It has grown fantastically. Today, 20 million cars a year, from 2 million two years ago. Its still growing 7 to 8 a year. 7 to 8 is a reasonable number, but 7 to 8 in china is 1. 5 million additional cars every year. Charlie whats the bestselling car in china . Well, the bestselling cars in china are a sedan that looks like the altima. It doesnt have the same name, obviously, a different design, but cars like the altima in the United States, is the biggest selling car. Charlie your goal is to become one of the three biggest carmakers, toyota, General Motors, volkswagen, you want to replace one of those and become third after General Motors . Were number four. We have a growth plan that should position us. We are forcing a different market. Its too early to say and were not targeting any car manufacturer in general, but just the math of the growth taking place should put us in the top three. Charlie how do you do it . I mean, youre the chief executive officer for three different companies. And theyre in three different places moscow, paris, tokyo. How do you stay alive . Well, i do. I spend most of my time between paris and tokyo and from time to time i go to the southern part of russia. But i say, obviously, it requires a lot of personal organization, team organization. Im fortunate to be surround bid very professional people who make things easy for me and prepare because, you know, when youre traveling the whole time, because im every month in paris and in tock owe, people dont care if you are jetlagged or coming out of a plane, they see the c. E. O. And they just want him to be fresh and ready to make decisions, et cetera. Charlie they want their time with him. Exactly. And it has to be quite a bit of time. So we just need a lot of self discipline and organization. Charlie you plan ahead by 15 months. Yeah, i have a schedule which is practically defined for the whole year 2015. Charlie do you have a secret to jetlag . No, unfortunately, there is no secret. The only secret is dont try to take anything, you know. Nature has to do its job. But you can help nature by being, again, very frugal during your trips and trying to adapt to the new country where you will be staying the next week with as soon as possible. Charlie youre not a car guy by training. You were at michelin where you spent 18 years or so and then game to renault. Yes. Charlie alan mal malaly wast a car job, came to ford and everybody agrees did a good job. Mary barra, on the other hand, grew up at g. M. Some people at ford have been classic car guys and g. M. As well. Is that all that needs to be a good manager and run a car company . In some cases, people who have grown up in the car industry would probably be better prepared to face the challenges at a certain point in time and, from time to time, you need outsiders, depending on the timing. You know, in the case of i mean, i take my case, in 1 1999i arrived in japan and had to face the turnaround of nissan. The fact that i was not japanese, the fact i was a recent comer to the car industry helped me a lot because, you know, i had no paradigms in mind. I didnt have any frequency idea. People knew that i was not involved into the paths of the industry. So i engage into a lot of transformation without prior baggage. Charlie but you were doing things also that went against the culture and traditions in japan. Yes. Charlie you were firing people. Yes. Charlie you were shutting down nonproductive plans. Yes, but i always explained why i needed to do it. I was not doing it as negligence, i was just saying we need to do that. Charlie or the Company Might not be profitable and might have to shut everything down. Right. So we explained why we were going to do it. We were cautious to say were not in the business of transformation, were in the business of turning around the company and for this well make the minimum changes necessary. Charlie its a Global Business in every way. Do you use the same kind of the same Assembly Lines for all the cars . Yeah, we do. And, you know, we are introducing a lot of flexibility in our system which means that in the same plant you can do many cars and on the same Assembly Line you can do cars of totally different design and different sizes. This is due to the fact that the new Manufacturing Systems that we have in our own plants are very flexible. Charlie when you look at the future, how do you see the future of the Automobile Industry . What are the forces that are changing it . Yeah. Well, i see first, its going to continue to grow for the very simple reason is, you know, the emerging markets are very low in terms of motorization. Just to give you an idea. Im not going to give you a lot of numbers. In the United States, you have practically one carper one individual. In europe, you have one car for two people. In most of the emerging markets, you have one car for ten people. So this is not going to stay like this. Were moving from one car for ten people to probably one car to three people or to two people, which means a lot of cars are going to be produced particularly in the emerging market. Now, these cars are going to change because the main trends today is low emission or zero emission. Second one is connected car. Charlie they want instant information. Exactly. Charlie all the information you can get through your computer. Exactly. And Autonomous Car, which doesnt mean a driverless car. You are in the car, but you decide to switch on or off. If you dont want to have your eyes on the road and if you want to do something else, you swish to a system that will take control from you. This is something extremely important. A lot of technology is being put behind this and i think with the three trends low emission or zero emission, connected car and Autonomous Car you can predict whats coming for the next five to ten years. Charlie of those, the connected car is clearly easy to do. With respect to low emissions, that has to be a demand on the part of the government and therefore you have to do that. The third thing, though, the autonomous versus the driverless, the autonomous is easy to reach . I think it is. I think you will have a lot of Autonomous Car by 2020 and it will be building by bricks. You will launch the first semiAutonomous Car in 2016, 2018, 2020. We mean by autonomous, selfparking cars, part of the Autonomous Car. The the fact youre on the highway and the system allows you to drive with the function of the car in front of you you keep a certain distance. The car will keep in the same lane, you know, because you can detect. This all of those, we call them a technological bricks. When you put them one after the other, you end up being able to detach completely your hands and your eyes from the road in a very safe way and do something else. You can do a video conference, you can do something very useful while youre driving the car. Big demand. Charlie an operative idea by 2020 . Yeah, in cars by 2020. Charlie why not driverless . Well, my opinion is usually you use a car to drive yourself. I mean, thats why people use a car. You transport your body and you want to do it in the most efficient and comfortable way as possible. If it is to transport goods, well, its not the car anymore, its something different. So, for me, whats very important in the definition of autonomous transportation is its about transportation of people and transporting people in the most secure, efficient and pleasant way possible. Charlie what do you say to people at google and places like that that are trying to develop Driverless Cars . They are testing the technology which is great, and we are working with them, but you are testing the technology to make the Autonomous Car as efficient as possible. Then there is a big question, charlie, is who is responsible for the car, when the car is without the driver. Where is the liability . The Car Manufacturers are never going to take the risk to take the liability for a driverless car, unless there is a legitimate scenario that would protect them from any abuse. Charlie there is always the talk and business goes up in Disruptive Technologies or disruptive forces. What could be disruptive in terms of the automobile future that you see . Oh, i think youre going to see a lot of disruptive zero emission technology. Today, electric car is the most popular marketable. It is set, costs are going down. We are in a phase of making it more efficient. But you have fuel cells coming. Hydrogen is a factor. Zero emission Charlie Toyota is doing Something Like that a. Were working on hired general. Carmakers have to develop all the technology at the same time. You cant just squeeze yourself in electric car only in fuel cells because you dont know what are going to be the regulations in the different countries. Charlie it varies from country to country. Exactly and they can switch from one technology to the other. In europe, 60 of the cars are diesel. In United States and japan, less than 1 . The reason for 60 diesel in europe is legislation, regulation. You know, driving people to buy this kind of technology. Thats why you cant just develop one or two technology because its not only based on consumer demand, its also based on what the legislature wants. Charlie you also must be be doing well in attracting the talent youve attracted because some are leaving you to take jobs at other important places. One of your executives went to aston martin, a job id love to have. Yeah. Charlie and other places to run their own show. Yeah. Charlie how do you deal with succession and executives who have trained to do their own thing . Is there a way you can find to keep those executives or is it inevitable that if theyre good, theyre going to be hired away . The car industry is very competitive and there is a war for talent in this industry, and talent is not something only academic, its also based on what youve done. When you do something which is remarkable in any field in the car industry, everyone knows about it. So you become a little bit of an asset not only for your own company but for your competitors, particularly if they need the specific skill to solve a problem or go after an opportunity. We hire people from competition. Its normal that competition from time to time hire people from us. We try to protect ourselves. There is no bulletproof kind of system, so we have to admit the only way you can do is to have a very solid succession planning by which every job, particularly in the top job, off list who can replace the person who is leaving and move quickly. Were trying to be as hard of a target as possible but at the same time being realistic that were going to lose some of our talent as well as well hire some existing with other competitors. Charlie how hard is it to deal with different cultures in each of these countries . Its difficult and complex but, at the same time, unavoidable. Particularly carmakers, today, are established on 50, 60, 70 countries where they have plants, technical centers, you know, big, you know, a big number of employees, and you want all of theme to be complete you want all of them to be completely engaged and mote intrietd what theyre motivated into what theyre doing. They need to feel as part of the whole company and being able to, depending on what theyre bringing to the table, to go to the top. Thats what were trying to develop in the culture. Diversity is a strength, complicated to manage, but you manage it well and you have much better solution and engagement. Charlie when you took over, you were at renault and then nissan came together because they both wanted your talent, its not a merger. No. Charlie its more a partnership. Exactly, what you call an alliance, a partnership. Charlie how does that work . We have two different executive companies, two different boards, two different headquarters. One in paris, one in tokyo. Charlie c. E. O. S. It happened through the circumstances that ended up because i was the c. E. O. Of nissan becoming also the c. E. O. Of renault, voted by the shareholders of renault and nissan. But i dont think its mandatory for the future. You can imagine a system where the two Companies Work together, each one having their own c. E. O. Charlie do they compete in the same market . Yes, europe, for example. Charlie so here you are setting the direction of two companies who are competing with each other. Exactly. But, you know, the opportunity comes from the fact that it is not so much cross shopping between the two brands. Somebody wanted to go by a renault in europe, in his mind, he has peugeot, volkswagen, et cetera, but rarely nissan. From the other side, some may have more toyota, nissan, hyundai. So the cross shopping is very local. I dont think any one of the two companies have felt obstruction coming from the other. Charlie g. M. Is having lots of problems with recalls. How do you assess that . Is it now that there is a notion that Car Companies not wanting a lot of problems as soon as they see even a small problem, and some of these have not been small problems because people have been killed, but theyre quick to recall because they understand the bad publicity and, secondly, they understand the danger if someones risking their life. Thats the reason you will see more and more recalls and voluntary recalls. Charlie exactly. You just dont want to take the risk that any of these recalls backfire on your brand. Its too costly to have these problems. So any other c. E. O. S are getting involved, im asking, very quickly, recall the car, and well see more and more of it. Charlie what do you think of tesla . Its a great competitor. Charlie he made the best effort to create a new car company in a while. I think probably its very courageous trying to do a car company these days when you have to compete against the titans. Charlie yeah. Whats most important is hes trying to develop with us the notion that zero emission cars can be fun, exciting, attractive, and thats why i dont consider him as competitors. Hes more into the premium. Charlie the higher end market. We are much more into the mass market of electric cars. Pushing in the same direction, making the electric car a normal car, something that is attractive for people. Charlie what does the leaf sell for . What does the Sticker Price sell for . Obviously, it depends on in what states you are buying it because every state has a different policy in terms of supporting. But i would say you can find a life as low as 28,000. Charlie the Dealership Community is very upset is elan because they dont want cars bought on line because you have dealers. What is your view of that . In our system we need entrepreneurs to rely the cars. I dont think we can do it directly through one consumer. Youre selling 8. 3 million cars directly to the consumers is something on which no car manufacturer is ready for. Nobody is doing it. Charlie what happens when somebody like amazon or alibaba says were going to get in the car business . You kn